Search results for "AGENCY"

Reconstructing Care Professionalism in Finland

2015

The public sector plays a special role in the Nordic welfare states through its commitment to the principle of universalism, and in relation to social security and publicly funded services in education, health and care (Rostgaard 2002). In the 21st century, the impact of economic austerity on public resources and a rapid aging of the population have forced welfare states to undergo an extreme reform. In Finland, the reform has meant streamlining the state, restraining public expenditure and recalibrating the universalistic ideals behind the Nordic welfare state model, as well as introducing new management models (Pollitt & Bouckaert 2011). The managerial reforms implemented in Finland have …

“Sitting at the Stern and Holding the Rudder” : Teachers’ Reflections on Action in Higher Education Based on Student Agency Analytics

2022

Digital technologies in teaching and learning in higher education have the potential to enhance student agency. Student agency is an essential resource to nurture, especially at times when students face challenges emerging from the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. In addition, contemporary policymaking has identified the importance of student agency. Student agency analytics is a process utilizing learning analytics, specifically psychometrics and machine learning to provide teachers insights about the agentic resources of their students. Four teachers in higher education were provided with student agency analytics results of their mathematics courses. The teachers partici…

Pathways to adulthood : developmental tasks, financial resources and agency

2015

Kannustin, koriste ja liikkujan kaveri : tutkimus liikuntateknologian käyttäjyydestä

2017

During the last couple of decades, information technology has become a ubiquitous part of almost all areas of everyday life; exercise and sports being no exception. Sports technology can be defined as digital entities, with which one can measure, record and analyse data on sports and physical activity, and refine it according to the needs of its users. This kind of technology has already been researched quite extensively. The majority of this research has concentrated on the effects of sports technology on the level of physical activity of its users, and on the adherence of users to different kinds of physical activity recommendations. In addition to this, within this research, sports techn…

Emerging Joint Expertise? Multiagency Collaboration Described in Local Integration Programmes in Finland

2016

Multiagency collaboration is seen as an essential way of working to promote the two-way integration of newcomers and a receiving society. The term multiagency collaboration underlines the diversity of actors in cooperation. Cross-sectorial networks are mentioned in higher strategies as well as in the local programmes or plans for action. But how is multiagency work structured at the local level? This article looks at the examples of multiagency collaboration in the written documents of local integration programmes in the Finnish context. The examples are chosen from different areas. It seems that collaboration is widely emphasized as a goal or a working method. Whereas expertise in integrat…

Let Me Hack It: Teachers’ Perceptions About ‘Making’ in Education

2020

Making in education is an emergent practice focusing on learners as creators of things in a collaborative fashion while promoting knowledge construction through technology, design, and creative self-expression. Teachers’ (n=33) opinions about making were studied using an online questionnaire after they had attended an online course for professional development about making in education. The results suggest that there exists a group of educators who consider making as a promising approach in education and want to promote its use in schools. peerReviewed

Assessment of students’ agency in Finnish and Spanish university courses: Analysis of measurement invariance

2023

This study reports on the measurement invariance of the Agency of University Students Scale in data consisting of Finnish and Spanish university students (n = 645) and presents cross-national findings on student agency assessment. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the metric invariance for 10 factors, which allows comparisons of covariance structures and correlation analyses, and can, for example, be used to examine background factor effects on agency across groups. At least partial scalar invariance was confirmed for six factors, allowing comparisons of mean values between Finnish and Spanish students. Differences were found in the experiences of personal and relational res…

The Management of Diversity in Schoolscapes

2015

The material environment of formal education (i.e., schoolscape) is determined not only by laws and local regulations, but by the visual practices of the given institution as well. Inscriptions and cultural symbols placed on the façade and the walls of the school building are tools for orienting the choice between various cultural and linguistic values and ideologies (Johnson 1980; Brown 2012). Based on photographs and research interviews collected in Budapest, I analyse both the material environments of four schools and the metadiscourses through which such spaces are interpreted and regulated. Investigation took place in both mainstream state schools as well as in private schools with alt…

(De)legitimating electronic surveillance : a critical discourse analysis of the Finnish news coverage of the Edward Snowden revelations

2017

In 2013, ex-National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden shocked the world by revealing the American NSA’s (and its partners’) extensive surveillance programs. The ensuing media discussion became a focal point for the justification and contestation of surveillance in the digital age. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on the discursive construction of surveillance, concentrating on how the practice is (de)legitimized. Methodologically, the paper draws on Critical Discourse Studies, applying the concept of discourse and utilizing insights from Van Leeuwen’s categories of legitimation and social actor representation. The data come from the media coverage of…

Narrating well-being in the context of precarious prosperity: An account of agency framed by culturally embedded happiness and gender beliefs

2016

This article sets out to critically examine the accounts of well-being produced by a middle-aged Swiss woman living in precarious prosperity. By taking on a feminist reading of the narrative on well-being, the article challenges the taken for granted assumption of the powerful agent in thriving societies. Insights from literature on happiness in nations and gender beliefs enabled addressing the woman’s capability to exert agency, while acknowledging the influence of the context in which narratives are embedded. In addition, the presence of a non-national interviewer appears to be an incentive for the interviewee’s compliance with cultural meta-narratives. The approach of well-being as ‘age…